Trade And Security:Diplomacy Study On Singapore's Bilateral FTA

Since its founding,Singapore has shown a strong international diplomatic ability which even does not match its national power.And with its unique feature,Singapore has become the model of “small country with powerful diplomacy”.The inherent vulnerability to survive of a small country made Singapore very much dependent on outside economy,and its crisis consciousness pushes this country to attach great importance to the cooperation with other countries.Due to its weaknesses in traditional diplomacy,Singapore advocates a comprehensive view of safety,stick to economic diplomacy,thus generates a economic diplomatic strategy which combines safety and trade.Singapore promotes the “State-building by Trade” Strategy and wishes to build itself into a city-state whose hinterland is the world.Because trade brings protection to its national security,Singapore is greatly in support of trade liberalization and actively takes part in multilateral diplomatic negotiations.However,since the 1990 s,the progress of multilateral negotiations has been slowing down,and regionalism and bilateral FTA roused.On the premise of supporting multilateral trade,Singapore uses bilateral FTA to tackle this predicament and propel the liberalization of multilateral trade.In this thesis,the role of Singapore's bilateral FTA in its diplomatic strategy is analyzed from a perspective concerning international relations.First,analyzing Singapore's bilateral FTA diplomatic background,especially the background of economic diplomacy strategy.I start with Singapore's vulnerability to survive,analyzing the cause of its economic diplomatic strategy which combines trade and safety,and its development of bilateral FTA diplomacy from 1990's to deal with the the uncertain trade and security environment due to changes in trade and safety environment.Then,according to economic benefits and political and diplomatic benefits I analyze the principle Singapore follows while choosing trading partners as conducting FTA cooperation with countries inside and outside of the region—— from the perspective of economic income and diplomatic strategy.And is Singapore for effective negotiations to reach an agreement as soon as possible by negotiation strategies.In the end,I proposed the three outcome of Singapore's bilateral FTA: economic security,national sovereignty,and regional stability.The potential factors leading to success as well as the regionality and semi-periphery restrictions that Singapore faces are discussed in this article.Singapore has to continuously adjust its policies.This paper argues that Singapore's bilateral FTA is one of its economic diplomacies and also a way to obtain its diplomatic targets.It serves Singapore's national interest and helps with the implement of “balancing great powers” strategy.What is more important is that it will boost multilateral trade and promote trade liberalization.